Monday Open Thread
Posted by Heading Out on December 19, 2005 - 11:18am
Topic: Miscellaneous
I was going to set a final exam for the techie talks, but maybe I'll just take a break from them for a couple of weeks. Have fun!
Posted by Heading Out on December 19, 2005 - 11:18am
Topic: Miscellaneous
Dec. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Goldman Sachs Group Inc. analyst Arjun Murti, who roiled oil markets in March by saying crude may reach $105 a barrel, now says that may be conservative if the ``peak oil'' theory is right and world supplies are running out.
The belief that the world's oil supply is close to an irreversible drop is no longer ``on the fringes'' of the market, said a research report by New York-based Murti, who forecasts oil of $50 to $105 a barrel until 2009. UBS AG analyst James Hubbard, a former oil engineer at Schlumberger Ltd., said an inevitable decline in supply will start sooner and be worse than expected unless investment increases for many years.
They are warning explicitly about "peak oil" for the first time.
"Oil-producing nations are seeking to extend the life of their reserves. Norway, which ranks behind Saudi Arabia and Russia in world oil exports, forecasts its production will peak in 2008. Oil and Energy Minister Odd Roger Enoksen in a Dec. 8 interview said he thinks it will come later."
Has anyone not bothered to pay attention to Norway's actual production for the last 7 years? Or are we in the era when "journalism" consists of taking politicians at their word, even when they make blatant errors like this?
/sarcasm on
If going from just under 3.5 mbpd down to just under 3 mbpd constitutes not peaking yet, then I wonder what the hell peak will actually look like?
/sarcasm off
The EIA historical records show Norway declining even if the EIA's forecasts still believe in the fantasy of Norwegian oil growing again, and yet journalists let politicians get away with making statements like the above.
I thought I read somewhere that they had additional fields that had not yet been drilled. The pressure from the environmentalists was such that the government was considering not exploring the area. I am reciting this from memory, so don't take this to be the gospel truth.
For 2006 Norwegian conventional average daily oil production will be below 2,6 mbpd, and I have developed a forecast that suggests 2,0 mbpd by 2008.
The minister has been in office for ooonly 2 months and as he comes from one of the most windy places in Norway and perhaps earth, he probably needs someeee time to digest the briefings from his bureaucrats.
Think Wile E. Coyote and the cliff....
'speeds' should be singular 'speed'
oceans 'become' empty, use 'are becoming' or 'are emptying'
'at exponential rates' not 'with exponential rates'
'hopefull' should be 'hopeful'
'comming' should be 'coming'
But rather, I would like to seen some comments on what I'm saying here. Well, I'm just going to forget it. It don't think it will happen anymore. Case Closed and happy flying to you all!
Have you read "Ishmael" by Daniel Quinn? He makes a somewhat similar analogy (that civilization is a prototype glider that failed, and no matter how hard we pump our legs on the wing flapping contraptions the basic laws of physics/ecology will still hold and we will fall to earth--maybe just a little slower (or faster)).
Good graphic. Now lets make a bumper sticker and slap it on our cars, o wait that would be ridiculously hypocritical. Or would it? I don't know (I don't drive, but... I digress).
Globally, the trees are dying, animals are being wiped out with unprecedented speed, oceans are emptying of life, water tables are dropping, topsoil is disappearing, polar ice is melting and the depletion of our most important energy resources, oil and natural gas, has reached a peak. At the same time, the human population is growing at an exponential rate.
Our society is like an airliner in free-fall. Because of the forward motion, most people think we're flying. But some of us know that we're also dropping down; they see the ground coming up to us, fast.
They're trying to get the message out there, still hopeful that some others will see the ground coming before we crash hard ....
I thought it was great. I copied it and made it my Desktop image...until I noticed the spelling errors.
Please stick with it...
Rick DeZeeuw
Factual: Water tables are falling.
Imagery: Airplanes don't free-fall. They may glide, or tumble out of control. But free-fall is something that's harder to do than flying.
You can print 4 of these pictures on 1 A4 paper (heavy paper) and send them around as postcards. Succes!
Rick
You want the picture without text?
The picture at CNN.com is quite different, but nice too.
http://kcrw.com/cgi-bin/ram_wrap.cgi?/tp/tp051216Post-Election_Iraq_a
-Ptone
voter turnout was an amazing 80% ...
In his victory speech, Morales has vowed to challenge the U.S., saying `long live coca, no to the yanquis.' As recently as two days ago, Morales vowed to be "the United States' worst nightmare." ...
Meanwhile, the excellent Knight Ridder reports that industrious Santa Cruz province is more defiant than ever about seceding, and taking its natural gas with it, setting a stage for potential civil war. Green flags of independence are being noted amid victory speeches in Santa Cruz.
http://www.publiuspundit.com/index.php
Interesting times.
Them that's got shall get
Them that's not shall lose
So the Bible said and it still is news
Mama may have, papa may have
But God bless the child that's got his own
That's got his own
I think it's inevitable that ANWR, as well as the currently protected coastal areas in the US, will eventually be drilled. If you believe the basic notion of peak oil and peak natural gas (meaning that they're real phenomena likely to hit in 0 to 10 years), and you know anything about politics, I don't see how you can reach any other conclusion. I'm not saying it will make a major difference to our energy future, just that it will happen.
The current administration and their friends, like Alaska's Sen. Ted Stevens, want this drilling to happen more than anything. There's no small amount of speculation that they want it not for the oil or gas, but to set a political precedent of the government getting what they want, regardless of environmental and other issues. I'm not sure I buy that explanation, but the political right in the US sure is fixated on drilling ANWR.
(The "you" above is the generic you, not Dave, just to be clear.)
There is more than three thimbles worth of oil in the fat in George Will's head - would he be amenable to having people drill for it there?
"Well I'm not going to vote for drilling in either one of these places [ANWR or the OCS] and my reason is that if you have only 2 percent of the known reserves of oil and use 25 percent of the world's oil and import two thirds of what you use, I'm having a hard time understanding how it's in our national security interest to use up the little bit of oil we have as quickly as possible. If we could pump ANWR and the offshore oil tomorrow, what would we do the day after tomorrow? This may be a rainy day. I think is going to be a rainier day. It's like money in the bank and money that's going to yield a big interest rate. Let's just leave it there."
http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/articles/525
Guess that was just a bunch of hot air.
Rick DeZeeuw
-- Roscoe Bartlett
Of course Roscoe Bartlett wasn't part of the process which voted to suck down that endowment ASAP. He may have voted to suck it down ASAP, but he didn't really mean it. He was counting on the Senate to kill the bill, and they didn't come through. Damn Senators.
These types of votes then get used, devoid of context, in attack ads by both parties to excoriate their opponents.
Turns my stomach ...